'Well, our texts are good at guarding their secrets, Tova Chaya. Yosef Yitzhok wanted to do as you say. He worked with people here to devise a computer programme, to do what we just did with that one verse: stopping at every fifth or seventh character. He did it for different years. And then he ran it through the GPS system and, sure enough, he started getting place names. But what use is a place name, Kabul or Mainz, for 1735? How are we to know who lived there then? Besides, Yosef Yitzhok always wondered if that was too easy.'

'If what was too easy?'

'He wasn't sure it would necessarily be the same verses for all time. Those were the verses the Rebbe had mentioned for his generation. But maybe the other great sages who had somehow been let in on this secret in the past — the Baal Shem Tov or Rabbi Leib Sorres — maybe they knew of the righteous men of their time in a different way. They didn't have this GPS, did they? This method wouldn't have made much sense to them, would it? They would have had their own ways — different verses, or maybe a different method entirely.

This, I now realize, is what lay behind the Rebbe's interest in technology. I think he understood that even the most enduring, ancient truths could outwardly change very fast, that they would find new forms. Hassidim had to know about the modern world, because this too is HaShem's creation. He is found here, too.'

Will and TO were silent. Awestruck, even: it was not just the lives of the thirty-six that were keeping Rabbi Freilich working around the clock, even now on the solemnest night of the Jewish year, when all work was prohibited. This man, who spoke with erudition and in calm, rational paragraphs, clearly believed he had less than twenty-four hours to save the world. Will tried to blot that out, to focus on his own, immediate need: Beth.

'OK,' he said, like a police captain calling his squad to order. 'So that's how the system works. The crucial question is, who else knows about this? Who else might know the identity of the righteous men?'

By now they were back at the table, where the rabbi had all but fallen into his chair. Will could see the exhaustion in his face.

'You were our best hope.'

'I'm sorry?'

'When you came here on shabbos. On Friday night. We thought you were some kind of spy. From the people who are doing this, I mean. You were asking questions, you were an outsider. Maybe you were trying to find out about the lamad vav. That's why we, why I, treated you so harshly. Then we discovered you were-' Will could see the rabbi did not want to name him as the husband of their hostage '-you were something else.'

Will could feel the anger rising within him again. Why did he not just shake this man and force him to reveal where Beth was? Why was he putting up with this? Because, a voice inside him began, if these people were fanatical enough to kidnap Beth for no apparent reason, they were fanatical enough to hold on to her. Rabbi Freilich might have looked weak and exhausted, but there were a dozen men in here who were stronger. If Will lunged, they would soon have him pinned down.

'All right, so it's not me. Who else knows?'

The rabbi sunk lower. 'That's just it. No one knows. No one outside this community. And not even this community has any idea what's going on: there would be mass panic if they did. If they knew that the lamadvavniks are being murdered, every day more of them killed, there would be chaos here. They would believe the end of the world was coming.'

'You believe that, don't you?' It was said in Tova Chaya's gentlest voice.

The rabbi looked up at her, his eyes wet. 'I fear that what the Rebbe spoke of is coming to pass. Di velt shokelt zich und treiselt zich. That's what he used to say, Tova Chaya. The world is trembling and shaking. I fear for what judgement this day is about to bring upon us.'

Will was pacing. 'So no one outside this small group has any idea of this. Just you, Yosef Yitzhok and a few of your best students.'

'And now you.'

'And you're sure no one breathed a word?'

'To whom? Who even knew about this whole subject?

Why would anyone ask? But when Yosef Yitzhok was found dead. Well, then 'Then, what?'

'It confirmed that somebody knows what we know and wanted to know more. until then, I thought maybe it was a strange coincidence that the tzaddikim were dying. Maybe this was the work of HaShem, for a purpose beyond our understanding.

But Yosef Yitzhok being murdered, that's not a plan of HaShem's.'

'You think someone was pressing him for information?'

'Just before you came tonight, I had a visit. The police.

They think Yosef Yitzhok was tortured before he was killed.'

Will and TO both recoiled.

'What did they want from him that they didn't know already?'

'Ah, this you tried to ask me about before. Remember, I told you about the verses the Rebbe quoted in his talks? The ones Yosef Yitzhok had memorized? Well, there was something missing.'

'There were only thirty-five.'

'That's right. Only thirty-five. You can use the method I just showed you, converting letters into numbers and turning those numbers into co-ordinates, but you would still have only thirty-five righteous men. Isn't it obvious what the men who killed Yosef Yitzhok wanted to know? They wanted the identity of number thirty-six.'

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Sunday, 11.18pm, Crown Heights, Brooklyn

Will's first impulse was to ask Rabbi Freilich the name of this thirty-sixth man. It was crucial. If he and TO knew that, they could work out where the killers were heading next: whoever he was, they were bound to be on his trail.

But the rabbi would not budge. For one thing, he said, the death of Yosef Yitzhok suggested the murderers were still not in possession of this vital fact. Had YY cracked under torture?

The rabbi was convinced he had not. 'I know this man. His intellect, his soul. He would not betray the word of the Rebbe.'

He was sure the secret was safe. If he shared it with TO and Will, it could only bring harm to them. Better that they did not know. (Will was sceptical: if the torturers came after him, they were hardly likely to inquire politely whether he had any useful information and then, once assured he did not, beat a polite retreat.) Will tried' another approach. 'This thirty-sixth righteous man? Is he still alive?'

'We think so. But I really will not say any more, Mr Monroe.

I cannot say any more.'

'Is he the only one alive?'

'We're not certain. Our sources of information are very patchy. We have had to scramble people to the furthest corners of the world to find these tzaddikim. Each time we have been getting there too late.'

'You mean, you didn't work out these names until this week?'

'No, Yosef Yitzhok made this breakthrough a few months ago. And, as I told you, we sent people to take a look, just to see who these tzaddikim were. We planned to keep an eye on them, no more. Maybe give them food or money if they were in trouble. But, to answer your question, we did not know they were dying until this week. We're not sure, but it only seems to have started a few days ago.'

'On Rosh Hashana,' said TO, her mind turning over visibly.

'That's when Howard Macrae was murdered.'

'I'm afraid we didn't know about that until days after it happened. When the news about the others started coming through. Was it even in the papers?'

'Yes,' said Will, pushing the air out of his nostrils in a sound of wry resignation. 'It was in the papers.' That was the trouble with page B3 of Metro; people could sail right past it.

'Anyway, it was the high holy days. We were not reading the newspapers. We were living our lives. We had no idea anything was happening. But then some of our people started hearing things. Our emissary in Seattle saw the cabin he had visited on the television news. The man who runs our centre in Chennai was reading through the

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